And yes, the PRISM scandal is far, far from over. More and more information keeps leaking out, and the more gets out, the worse it gets. The companies involved have sent out official statements - often by mouth of their CEOs - and what's interesting is that not only are these official statements eerily similar to each other, using the same terms clearly designed by lawyers, they also directly contradict new reports from The New York Times. So, who is lying?

I am in support of the public ownership of all infrastructure, be it transport, police, fibre optics, or what have you.

The reason I am against complete socialism is that competition drives innovation, so unless the government is pushing development extremely hard, it is unlikely to be able to beat commercial interests in matters such as farming or technology.

My angst with the labor party is that they are not socialist enough, and are moving increasingly to the right.

Ideally, I support technocracy combined with democracy and a georgist taxation system within a strongly left-leaning single global government.
That sort of thing is unlikely to actually come about, so keeping everything left of centre and hoping we can reach post-scarcity is more realistic.
With AI and robotics only getting better, it is only a matter of time until the majority are unemployed; what is there to do, but manage business, do research, entertain and make art, in that time?
You can't rely on charity, so you need welfare, or to simply abolish currency for the most part - moving into communist territory "to each according to his needs", as opposed to the socialist "to each according to his deeds".

My point was that companies are to be trusted less than governments, because even if the government protects its people in a way similar to the AI Asimov wrote of, its entire purpose is still to protect its people.
It can be made less intrusory by altering laws.
The only purpose of a company is to make more money.
They owe customers nothing, except to provide that for which they have paid.

A lot of this was 'tackled' by Social Credit and other money reform systems, including those examined by Quakers in the UK In the 1920s, as well as by the German Silvio Gesell.

I say 'tackled' since Social Credit according to some views has/had an intrinsically anti-Semitic bent given its chief proponent was Major C H Douglas, and for that and other reasons the orthodox Left has usually dismissed it as a system of 'funny money'.

It was briefly reconsidered by sections of the Left in Britain in the 1970s in the face of the almost overpowering Oil Crisis coupled with the UK's industrial decline.

The most colourful character who promoted Social Credit was John Hargrave, who also saw that technology would bring unemployment aka leisure to most of the world's population, so that standard economic theory would no longer suffice. He additionally supported world government. Unfortunately he was also dismissed as a crank.

Interesting. I had been thinking similarly for some time; work needs to be about either pursuing a passion (FOSS development, art, science, etc.), or attempting to access more "stuff" by gaining more than a baseline level of purchasing power.

The amount of talent wasted in pushing money around for the sake of making more money is just ridiculous nowadays.

None of these reforms are likely to occur any time soon though, due to the grip the capitalists (who have all of the money) have over public opinion.
Unemployment is going to rise, *which is not a bad thing; more time for personal projects to advance human culture and knowledge* - but people are convinced that it is. Insanity.